CODE SWITCHING/SPANISH PART 2

Consider the following messages. In which language are they written?

 Feeling sick? No te sientes bien?
Watch un poco de television
Drink your té con miel y limón
Habla on the telephone
Before you know it, y de repente, you’ll be feeling ¡excelente!

SPANGLISH
• code-switching Spanish-English
• assertion of “border identity”
• Stigmatization …yet used in media , whether English or Spanish dominant
• Dialect? Evolving of an existing language? Emerging of a new language? (still
debated issues)
• “hybrid” /border language → belonging to both worlds; neither should be
given up (no white supremacy; challenge to monoculturalism)
• “democratic nature” = used across social classes
• The term is an abstraction → political and ideological motivation

Practice of CODE-SWITCHING:
 Phenomenon of language contact (back to the conquest of New Mexico in
1848) and bilingual context
 shifting back and forth between two languages: alternation of two languages
in discourse, at the level of word, clause or sentence
 linguistic and sociocultural elements

Spanglish
Myth/negative attitude Instead:
 • it’s a way for the speaker to rely • a badge of community
on his/her mother tongue when membership” (Zentella 1985) →
missing words in English authentic identity in two cultures
and in their two languages
• lack or fluency, or memory lapses
in the second language • especially in more informal styles
of speaking → switches are
• rejection of full participation in
spontaneous, unedited and
American society + refusal to
natural
learn “proper” English
• proficiency in both languages (no
crutch hypothesis)
• systematic and (however
unconsciously by speakers) rule-
governed

Structure (linguistic perspective)

INTERSENTENTIAL INTRASENTENTIAL
 switch between sentences:  switch within a sentence → high
level of linguistic competence
“She wanted to experiment. Querìa ver
(especially produced by subjects
qué habìa allà afuera del palacio”
with a positive attitudes toward
CS):
“El lobo went to the old lady’s house
and la echò”
Intrasentential code-switching:
 FREE MORPHEME CONSTRAINT: no mix of morphologies within the same
word/in the middle of a word (*run-iendo) ≠ faxear, chatear, cliquear,
emailearse, rentar…(→ language-mixing = mix at word-internal level;
adaptation)
 EQUIVALENCE CONSTRAINT: each constituent must behave according to the
rules of its own language: only when they behave in the same way, can code-
switching occur (cf. *‘a tree verde’ vs. ‘then I bought los tomates’)
• lexical level → often, reliance on words and phrases in one language that are
not available in the other or that have linguistic currency in particular contexts
• Spanish to English → English words/phrases = loan words or borrowings
• English to Spanish → claims for individual or group identity
• switches between languages with structural similarity → at points of syntactic
equivalence (e.g, in our case: subject noun phrase-verb phrase; verb-object);
“his favorite lugar/su spot favorito” (adjective-noun/noun-adjective: different
rule) ↓
• switches link constituents that are grammatical in one language + constituents
that are grammatical in the other; prolific code-switching → proficiency in
both languages; intra sentential code-switchers = best speakers of both
English and Spanish

Examples of CS (in Spanglish):

1) "I ain't got no sugar. No hay tiempo. Mira, ¿qué te iba a decir?” The switching
is a whole sentence; it is switching between sentences (= intersentential CS).
2) "I mean, there's-- hay veces que yo estoy durmiendo, y no puedo dormir por
los nervios." Switching in the middle of a sentence (= intrasentential CS); the
switching part has the structure of a complete sentence.
3) "Si no estudio-- I mean, there's no way." Switching in mid-sentence
(=intrasentential CS); the switch is the second part of a conditional clause.
 4) "The number doesn't matter. El número no importa." Switching between
sentences (= intersentential CS); the switch is a complete sentence, repeating
the first.

More examples:
5) "Pero, you study. Pero you also have..."
Example of mixing in a Spanish conjunction while speaking in English.
(intrasentential CS)
6) "in the weekend que viene."
Here an English prepositional phrase has been mixed in while the speaker is basically
speaking in Spanish (verb phrase). (intrasentential CS)
7) "Si tú sign up, tú no te puedes..."
Verb+particle from English into Spanish. (intrasentential CS)

Possible shifts (v. Stavans ed., pp. 35-40 and 42-46 for further examples):
 In noun phrase (el wedding)
 Predicate adjectives and predicate nouns (Me quedé surprised); but no
Spanish predicate after English verbs
 Verb phrases (Te están brain-washing)
 Noun phrases after prepositions (Yo estoy hablando de interaction, de power)
 Adverb/Adverbial phrases (I’ma put it al revez)
 Verb complements (direct objects: Te dan greater yields)
 Imperative (It’s full aready, mira)
 Tag (Es una peseta, right?)
 Vestigial Spanish: introduction of colloquial Spanish expressions itno English
discourse (Órale! [ok, va bene]; Jijo]
 Determiners, prepositions, relative clause, exclamations, personal pronoun…
In the perspective of sociocultural linguistics:
• conversational activity where speakers negotiate meaning with each other
• the perceived linguistic proficiency of the addressee is important to
determine the speaker’s linguistic choice
• use of discourse marker ‘you know’ (switching from Spanish to English) to
make sure the interlocutor is paying attention
• issue of identity: who code-switches most is who keeps contact with the rest
of his/her community → CS preserves Spanish (the use of English does not
change the structure of Spanish) → keep cultural and linguistic traditions; →
resistance to Americanization
• importance of the community (or no CS would be practiced even if speakers
have the ability)

On Code Switching
 Situational switching and metaphorical switching (Blom and Gumperz) or
conversational switching (Gumperz’s preferred term)
 CS signals contextual information (it offers contextualization cues, in
Gumperz’s terms): beyond referential content
 Markedness model of CS (Myers-Scotton):
• Each language is associated with specific social roles (rights-and-obligations);
speaking a certain language → understanding of situation and social roles
• Negotiation principle: Choose the form of your conversational contribution
such that it indexes the set of rights and obligations which you wish to be in
force between the speaker and addressee for the current exchange (Myers-
Scotton in Nilep, p. 11)
 To resist or redefine the value of symbolic resources (Heller)
 As “crossing” (Rampton)
 CS: not semantic in nature but dependent on the development of the
conversation; preference for maintaining the language of the previous turn;
CS to mark contrast (Auer)
  CS to enhance turn selection, soften refusals, accomplish repair, mark
dispreferred responses (for Conversational analysts)
 To make speakers’ identities, elements of the situation or social-cultural
background relevant

Discourse strategies/pragmatic ends (functions of CS):

GUMPERZ (6 discursive functions): Other functions:
1) Quotations 7) clarification
2) Addressee specification 8) to facilitate communication
3) Interjections 9) emphasis
4) Reiteration 10) switching to establish control (cf. parent-
child communication)
5) Message qualification
11) ethnic solidarity / intimacy
6) Personalization vs.
objectivation 12) persuasion
13) appeal to the interlocutor
14) mark changes from casual to formal style
and vice versa
15) ‘footing’ (Goffman: stance/positioning)
16) Be ‘polite’ (cf. also “function of
interaction”, slide 18)

N.B:
SPANGLISH
 linguistic and communicative sophistication through the use of different
languages to mark aspects of the discourse situation and the speaker’s
identity
  style of language use with both functional and linguistic dimensions
 For many US Spanish speakers = legitimate and highly valued form of
language use

Stylistic features & functions commonly marked by language alternations

(further examples)
a) reported speech – I think so, dijo el
b) emphasis – Mientras estara´ a miles de millas away from here.
c) Elaboration (message qualification) – Caminamos por Melrose, checking out
the stores, y luego decidimos ir a cenar
d) Parentheticals – Allì, totally out of the blue, acabamos planeando un viaje
para la semana que viene.
e) fixed or formulaic phrases – No tenìa fuerzas para nada, asì´ que lo deje´ and I
called it a day.
Factors influencing language choice
(from F. Grosjean, Life with Two Languages: An Introduction to Bilingualism,
Cambridge, Harvard University Press, 1983;
cf. also Nilep, “Code Switching in Sociocultural Linguistics” in your program)
Participants Situation
• Language proficiency • Location/Setting
• Language preference • Presence of monolinguals
• Socioeconomic status • Degree of formality
• Age • Degree of intimacy
• Sex Content of Discourse
• Occupation • Topic
• Education • Type of vocabulary
• Ethnic Background
• History of speakers’ linguistic Function of Interaction
interaction
 • Kinship relation • To raise status
• Intimacy • To create social distance
• Power relation • To exclude someone
• Attitude toward languages • To request or command
• Outside pressure

Another laguage contact phenomenon – CALQUING:

• no code-switching or actual borrowing
• incorporation (via translation) of both meaning and form from the model
language without violating the syntax of the host language
• translation as literal as possible: “weekdays” → dias de la semana (vs. “dias de
trabajo”); “answering machine” → maquina de contestar (vs. “contestador
automatico”), tener un buon tiempo (“to have a good time”)
implications:
• primacy to the host language (here Spanish) over the model (English) in
language/cultural contact situations
• also new meaning/connotation into a language (usually of lesser status)
without actually adopting the vocabulary of the model/dominant language
• also, from another point of view, submission to the domination of another
language
• mix of resistance and adaptation to other languages (unlike code-switching),
out of language/culture contact situations